BORN: around 1584-1587/Probably in Lancashire County, England
DIED: October 3, 1656/ Duxbury

Of English birth and ancestry, Myles Standish served as a solder in Holland from possibly as early as 1601, a participant in England’s long struggle to defend the Dutch Republic against Spain. The young soldier was exposed to siege warfare as well as approaches to fortified defense that he could draw on later in Plymouth Colony. Stationed in Leiden during the twelve-year truce that began in 1609, he met Reverend John Robinson and other English Separatists, and likely joined their congregation. Standish appears to have married his first wife Rose while in Holland.

Standish became military leader of the Pilgrims’ colonial venture when Captain John Smith proved too costly to hire. He traveled with his wife Rose aboard the Mayflower. Once arrived at Cape Cod, Standish led early expeditions in search of a place for their settlement. During the first winter, he was one of the few who were well enough to care for the sick and dying. On February 17, 1621, Standish was elected the Colony’s military commander. That spring, he organized their militia.  In 1622, he directed the construction of a palisade around the colony and oversaw the placement of cannon on top of the fort-meetinghouse.

“….having as yet (under God) no other defense than our Arms, we thought it most needful to impale our Town, which with all expedition we accomplished in the month of February and some few days, taking in the top of the Hill under which our Town is seated, making four bulwarks or jetties without the ordinary circuit of the pale, from whence we could defend the whole Town….This being done, Captain Standish divided our strength into four squadrons or companies, appointing whom he thought most fit to have command of each; And at a general Muster or Training, appointed each his place, gave each his Company, giving them charge upon every alarm to resort to their Leaders to their appointed place, and in his absence, to be commanded and directed by them.”
– Good News from New England by Edward Winslow: A Scholarly Edition, edited by Kelly Wisecup (Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014), 61.

Captain Standish worked to ensure the Colony’s security and military preparedness. He provided armed escort for trading expeditions and led military excursions, most notably to the troubled settlement at Wessagusset in 1623. In one of the early colony’s most brutal conflicts, Standish, responding to report of an imminent attack by the Massachusett on Plymouth, led a pre-emptive strike that killed seven men. The English soldiers took the head of one of the Massachusett leaders, Witawamet, back to Plymouth to be displayed as a gruesome warning. The violence dismayed John Robinson when he heard the news back in Leiden.

Standish was criticized as being hot-headed and injudicious by a number of contemporaries. In enforcing the colony’s laws, he sometimes received verbal abuse from those he had to censure.

Standish married his second wife, Barbara, sometime after her arrival on the ship Anne in 1623. The couple had seven children: Charles (died young), Alexander, John, Myles, Loara, Josiah, and Charles. Standish returned to England in 1625/6 as an agent of the Colony to the Merchant Adventurers, returning to Plymouth with the sad news of John Robinson’s death. At some point, Barbara and Myles established their home in Duxbury, which Standish helped found.

Standish served many times throughout his life as one of the Governor’s Assistants, as well as on committees and councils of war.

He died in 1656, according to probate records. Barbara Standish died sometime after October 6, 1659, when she was mentioned in the inventory of Elizabeth Hopkins’ estate.